Sohrab and Rustum, ll. 857–end

Poem introduction

Matthew Arnold's 'Sohrab and Rustum' displays his narrative skills and his talent for scene-setting. It tells how two celebrated warriors – father and son – are set against one another, neither knowing the other's identity, in single combat to decide the outcome of war between Persians and Tartars. Here are the final 35 lines of this 900-line poem, where the victorious father, Rustum, lies down beside the body of his dead son Sohrab, beside the Oxus River – which flows on, indifferent to humanity, to the Aral Sea.

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Sohrab and Rustum, ll. 857–end

So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead;
And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak
Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son.
As those black granite pillars, once high-rear'd
By Jemshid in Persepolis, to bear
His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps
Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side—
So in the sand lay Rustum by his son.

And night came down over the solemn waste,
And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,
And darken'd all; and a cold fog, with night,
Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,
As of a great assembly loosed, and fires
Began to twinkle through the fog; for now
Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal;
The Persians took it on the open sands
Southward, the Tartars by the river marge;
And Rustum and his son were left alone.